Saving Thanksgiving

New England has maintained considerable "Thanksgiving awareness" since the days when the Pilgrims were supported by native people along the Massachusetts coast in growing and harvesting indigeneous foods, a real cause for celebration in a hungry colony. Thus, it may be a little known fact that our national Thanksgiving holiday needed saving at one point in history. The picture book entitled Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving (by Laurie Halse Anderson, illustrated by Matt Faulkner) tells the story. Sarah Josepha Hale, a teacher, writer and editor, felt Thanksgiving should be a holiday across the nation, not just at the whim of an individual state's decision to make it a day of thanks. Beginning with U. S. President Zachary Taylor, Sarah (who wrote letters and editorials about many causes of the day) began a letter-writing campaign that spanned five presidencies. Finally, in 1863, she was successful in getting a "Yes!" from Abraham Lincoln. Thanksgiving was firmly established as a holiday the fourth Thursday in November (well, for a while in the 1930s it was moved a week earlier to make a longer shopping season, but that failed). Sarah Hale proved that "the pen is mightier than the sword," though it took a long time!


In third grade library classes this week, we explored several sources of information about this event in history. Made curious by Anderson's book, we looked at a full biography of Sarah Josepha Hale in the Lawrence library collection and discovered how passionate she was personally about Thanksgiving as a time when an extended family comes together to give thanks; we then looked at the long Thanksgiving article in World Book Online, which linked us to its biography of Sarah Hale. Making connections among different sources of information is a satisfying and informative adventure. Long live Thanksgiving!